HEALTH – WAITING TIMES
– 2 May 2000

Dr Julian Lewis: Given that the Secretary of State's defence in this matter is that the service is giving priority to emergency cases, what does he have to say to my constituent, Miss Kerry Wort of Totton, who, last December – at the very time he claims that emergency cases were being given priority – was told that she would have to wait 10 months for an emergency kidney operation, and that that wait would mean that she would lose the whole kidney, whereas if she could have the operation soon, she would save the kidney? She was, of course, forced off the list and had to use £5,000 of her own money to get the same operation from the same surgeon privately, three days later. If that is the Government's idea of emergencies receiving priority, they are not even delivering on that.